A Good Man
by Dark Satirist
Summary: "Sherlock is a great man. And I believe one day, if we're all very lucky, he might even be a good one." Lestrade never knew how true his words were until now, as he stood in the rain listening to the final confrontation between Moriarty and Sherlock.
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer: One day, maybe, I'll move to England and become a part of Steven Moffat's crazy group of writers. Until then, I do not own _Sherlock _or any of its amazing characters or any of its past reincarnations._

_Warning: Major, major, major spoilers for The Reichenbach Fall. DO NOT READ if you haven't watched the episode or if you do not want to be spoiled. Don't say I didn't warn you._

_So, this is the beginning of a three-part story that I'm working on, all centering around Sherlock's return to London. Part one is from Lestrade's point of view. Part two is going to be from John's. And part three is going to be from Sherlock's._

**A Good Man**

**Chapter One: Lestrade**

_"Because Sherlock's a great man. And I think that someday, he might even be a good one."_

It had been over a year since Lestrade had spoken those words to John, but they still rang as clearly in his mind as they had the day he had said them.

And here, on the pavement below St. Bartholomew's Hospital, was the proof that the day Sherlock became a good man had come, though Lestrade found himself wishing that it hadn't come at such a terrible price.

The rain that had been threatening to fall all day was now soaking any person stupid enough to walk outside without an umbrella. Lestrade himself was already drenched to the bone, staring at the spot where hours ago, the great Sherlock Holmes had finally met his end.

The blood had long since been washed away, probably circling some drainage ditch beneath the detective inspector's feet by now. The only true evidence that showed something terrible had happened here was the bright yellow police tape blowing haphazardly in the strong wind.

Lestrade had heard what happened to Sherlock long after the body had been taken into the morgue. He had arrived on scene twenty minutes after the police had taken the witness' statements, only to find an incoherent John Watson sitting against the building, staring at the dark red patch that was Sherlock's blood.

Lestrade had never, in his many years as a detective, seen someone as broken as John Watson was in those hours after Sherlock's suicide. It was as though someone had singlehandedly ripped the heart out of him and forced him to watch the world burn down around him.

"He was innocent," was the only thing Watson said that made any sense at all the entire time Lestrade stood there.

At first, Lestrade had thought John crazy, deluded by the same story that everyone else had been. There was more than ample proof that Sherlock had been a fraud—wasn't there? There was no way a man could make such brilliant deductions out of such small proof. Donnavan had been right—it was Sherlock who had been committing the crimes, and then coming up with wild schemes that were so intricate that Lestrade and the others had no choice but to believe him. The evidence provided by Rich Brook showed that Moriarty didn't exist, that it was all a game Sherlock had created.

But the longer Lestrade stood in the pouring rain, the more he realized John wasn't the one who had been duped—it was Lestrade. It was all of the people who believed the cock and bull story the press issued. Because there was no _way_ Sherlock could have committed all of those crimes. He had been an arrogant, egotistical, insane _sociopath_, but Lestrade didn't believe for a second that Sherlock had been a bad person.

What really sold Lestrade on the idea that Sherlock had been innocent, however, was the tape recorder he found long after John had left the scene. It hadn't been there before—that much was obvious by the lack of water damage from the rain—but it wasn't when it appeared that was the issue. It was what the tape recorder contained.

It contained the all too familiar voice of Sherlock, which was surprisingly hard to hear after the man's suicide, and the less familiar sound of Moriarty's voice. The words were muted, but clear.

"_That's your weakness,_" Moriarty said, his voice betraying his utter insanity. Lestrade shivered at the sound of it. "_You always want things to be clever. We'll finish the game, one final act. Glad you chose a tall building. It's a great place to do it."_

_"Do it? Do what? Ah…"_ Sherlock's voice trailed off in the manner it always did when he made a brilliant deduction. It was obvious now those deductions had never been faked. There was no one here to put an act on for and he was still deducing. "_My suicide._"

Lestrade froze at those words, spoken in that defeated tone of voice. _Sherlock's suicide wasn't his choice_.

It all made sense now. Lestrade had never been the one to picture Sherlock committing suicide—the man was far too fond of himself to do something that mundane—and if it hadn't been for John Watson's rather violent depiction of how Sherlock had called him and told him he was going to commit suicide, Lestrade doubted he would believe that Holmes hadn't been pushed.

"_Genius detective proved to be a fraud,_" Moriarty sounded gleeful, as though nothing else in the world made him happier than proving Sherlock to be a fake.

Lestrade felt like an idiot.

_Don't worry, Greg,_ a voice in his head that sounded convincingly like Sherlock's. _You all are idiots._

"_Read it in the papers,_" Moriarty continued. "_Fairytales._"

Damn the press. That had always been one of Lestrade's beliefs. The press was always biased. It should always be read with a grain of salt. He _knew_ that, yet at Anderson and Donnavan's insistence, he believed the false words of the papers anyway.

He was brought back to the reality of the tape recorder when Sherlock spoke once more.

"_I could still prove that you created an entirely false identity,_" he said. His voice was desperate, almost as if he was bargaining for his life. They were spoken without conviction, as though he knew that Moriarty wouldn't take the bait.

It added more to the belief in Lestrade's mind that Sherlock hadn't jumped willingly.

"_You could kill yourself,_" Moriarty sounded bored now. "_It's a lot less effort._"

Sherlock, for the first time since Lestrade could recall, sounded surprised. "_You're insane._"

"_You're only getting that now?_" Moriarty demanded, sounding almost _disappointed_. "_Let me give you a little extra incentive. Your friends will die if you don't."_

Lestrade's breath caught in his throat. Of _course_. The one person in the world that could bring out the humanity in Sherlock was…

"_John_."

The single word was spoken with so much _emotion_ that if Lestrade didn't know any better, he would have sworn it wasn't Sherlock.

"_Not just John,_" Moriarty added vindictively. "_Everyone_."

"_Mrs. Hudson._"

Again, there was that powerful emotion, the one that cemented the beliefs that Lestrade had about Sherlock being a good person.

"_Everyone,_" Moriarty repeated, confusing Lestrade.

Who else was there? It was clear enough that the Holmes brothers had a twisted relationship. While Mycroft was interested in keeping Sherlock alive, Lestrade doubted the feeling was mutual.

"_Lestrade?_"

Greg's eyes widened, unable to believe the quiet, whispered admission. _Sherlock had counted him as a friend._

The detective inspector swallowed around the sudden lump in his throat, feeling ashamed for having bought into Donnavan and Anderson's twisted story about Sherlock being a criminal. Here was ample evidence that the man obviously wasn't who they thought he was.

Moriarty was talking again, outlining a horrific plan for John, Mrs. Hudson, and even Lestrade to be taken out by three simple gunmen.

"_There's no way of stopping them now,_" the criminal mastermind said. "_Unless more people see you jump."_

Lestrade jammed the stop button on the recording device, unable to listen to anymore. It was obvious now why Sherlock had jumped, but the reason was so _heartbreaking_ after everything that had happened that Lestrade didn't want to believe it was true. It was a day he had hoped would come, but it came far too late.

Sherlock had become a good man, but in the end, it had killed him. He had sacrificed himself to save the people he cared about. And Lestrade had somewhere along the way had luckily become one of those people.

Guilt crashed over him in white hot waves, threatening to consume him.

_Sherlock had died to save him._

After everything that had happened, after Lestrade turning his back on Sherlock and arresting him for god's sake, Sherlock had still found it in himself to not want Lestrade dead.

And now, as a result, the world's greatest and only consulting detective was _gone_.

There was a small piece of paper taped to the back of the tape recorder.

_Richard Brook = Richenbach. There was no code. Molly knows everything. Next time, don't be such an idiot, Greg. –SH. PS, don't tell John. He needs to believe that I was a fraud. _

Lestrade glanced up, his admittedly wet eyes wide as he glanced around the rain soaked crime scene. He was just in time to see a tall man in a long, black coat go sweeping around a corner.


	2. Chapter 2

_There are some spoilers for _The Great Game_ in here, but I'm assuming that if you've seen season 2, then you've seen season 1's finale. _

_There isn't a whole lot of dialouge in this one-it's mostly John being depressed that Sherlock's gone. _

_Thank you for all of your reviews! I'm pretty sure that's the most amount of reviews I've ever had for one chapter. You guys are awesome! I'm working on responding to your wonderful words; if I haven't, it's nothing personal. It just means I haven't gotten around to it yet._

_Hope you enjoy the chapter!_

**A Good Man**

**Chapter 2**

John returned to 221 B Baker Street three weeks after his visit to Sherlock's grave site. It had been close to a month since Sherlock and Moriarty's last stand and John would admit to the fact that he still wasn't dealing with it. The therapist had been as useful after Sherlock's death as she had upon John's return from Afghanistan and no matter how hard Mrs. Hudson or Lestrade tried, John just couldn't handle the fact that someone as good and decent as Sherlock Holmes had been ruined by a man like Moriarty. Had been reduced to nothing and then forced to jump off a building to save his friends. To save John.

Swallowing around the sudden lump in his throat, John shoved the thoughts of the past month out of his mind and took in his surroundings. He was standing on the top of the stairs, his hand hovering above the door knob. It struck him then that he was afraid of what awaited on the other side of that door. He didn't want to open it and lose what little hope he had that Sherlock was still alive.

_"Don't be ridiculous, John. Open the door."_

John huffed a small laugh, unable to believe that he was terrified of a door.

"I'm… insane," he decided at last and pushed the door open.

It was obvious from the get go that someone had cleared the flat of all of Sherlock's belongings. John's few contributions to the furniture were there—his chair, the dining room table that was oddly bare without Sherlock's experiments, and the telly—but the rest of it was gone, as if it had never been there in the first place.

The smiley face on the garish wallpaper was still there, still riddled with bullet holes. It was the only presence of Sherlock that John saw in the entire flat—and he checked everywhere, including Sherlock's old bedroom.

John took a deep breath as he returned to the main room. The flat seemed bigger than it ever had before, even without the obvious lack of furniture. It seemed foreign, almost as if John had been transported to some alternate reality where Sherlock had never existed.

There was a pile of newspapers in the corner. The one on top of the pile showed today's date and an image of Sherlock in his deerstalker. A morbid sense of curiosity spurred John over to the newspapers, and with slightly trembling hands, he picked it up.

He wasn't sure what he was expecting—the newspapers were still having a field day with the events at St. Bart's and Sherlock being a fraud. John should have known this would be more of the same, but it still didn't stop him from becoming irrationally angry when the headline read _More Evidence of Fraud_.

John knew without a shadow of a doubt that Sherlock wasn't a fraud. Even given his friend's suicide 'note' and Sherlock all but begging—_begging_—John to believe that what that reporter had said was true, that he was a fake, John knew that no one could have faked that utter brilliance.

That, and he researched himself on the Internet and none of the things Sherlock had deduced from John could be found on the Internet, save for his military record and the fact that he had a sister. Which Sherlock had deduced incorrectly, thinking that Harry was a man.

A wave of sadness crashed over John, nearly drowning him. It didn't matter if Sherlock was truly a fraud or not, not anymore. He was gone, taken by Moriarty's twisted quest for excitement.

John dropped the newspaper to the floor and kicked it savagely. It was just further proof of how desperate Moriarty had been, if he had resulted to destroying Sherlock's reputation. It showed truly who the better man was and while it should have comforted John that he had been friends with that one, it didn't. Because in the end, being the better man didn't save Sherlock. It destroyed him.

_"There are lives at stake Sherlock. Actual human lives. Jus-Just so I know, do you care about that at all?"_

"_Will caring about them help save them?_"

"_No._"

"_Then I'll continue not to make that mistake._"

"_And you find that easy, do you?_"

"_Yes. Very. Is that news to you?"_

_"No. No."_

_"I've disappointed you."_

_"Good. That's a good deduction. Yeah."_

_"Don't make people into heroes, John. They don't exist and if they did, I wouldn't be one of them._"

Their conversation from so long ago, back during their first encounter with Moriarty, played clearly in John's head as if it had just happened yesterday.

"You were wrong," John whispered to the empty flat. "You are a hero. And you weren't a fraud."

He stood there for a moment or two, trying to get a handle on his emotions.

Out of habit more than anything else, John moved to the kitchen, alarmed at how clean it was. Never in his two years of living in that flat had John seen the counters. They had always been cluttered with Sherlock's experiments or—to John's amused horror—body parts.

But now, they were pristinely clean, without so much of a trace that unspeakable events had occurred there only a month prior. Even the burn on the counter that John himself made when attempting to put out a fire that occurred in one of Sherlock's many experiments gone wrong had disappeared.

Anger, sharp and bitter, coursed through John as he stared at the spot that burn used to be. It was obvious that the counters had been replaced, and for some reason, that made John so very _angry_.

Without pausing to think about what he was doing, John yanked out his cell phone, a device he hadn't used in over three weeks, and dialed a number.

"_Hello?_" a bored female's voice answered.

"Get Mycroft," John ordered, his military bearing spilling into his voice.

"_He's not available_," the woman answered, still bored and completely unaffected by the angry man on the other end of the line. "_May I take a message?_"

"Tell your boss that the next time he wants to clean up after his brother to leave the bloody counters alone!" John all but shouted. He went on for another five minutes, depicting how much of an idiot Mycroft was for replacing the counters and that surely the man had better things to do for the British government than waste money on replacing the counters.

"And tell him to learn to mind his own bloody business and quit having me followed!" John ended, his voice rising to a dull roar.

He fell quiet for a minute, before realizing that the woman had already hung up the phone.

"Great," John muttered. "Just great. Go and hang up, leaving the crazy man to deal with an empty apartment. Half the stuff Sherlock had was mine, you know!"

He glared at the offending object in his hand for a moment longer before hurling it across the apartment. It crashed against the door jam and fell to the floor in a million pieces.

"Still having rows with machines, I take it?" a soft baritone drawled from the door.

John froze, his mouth falling open and his eyes growing wide as he lifted his gaze from the shattered phone on the floor to the owner of the voice.

"_Sherlock?_"


	3. Chapter 3

_So, sorry this chapter is so late. My muse wasn't exactly happy with how the relationship between John and Sherlock was turning out... I'm still not too happy with it, but if I have to look at it any longer, then it's never going to get written._

_Thank you for everyone who has read, reviewed, favorited, and alerted this story. I'm glad you've enjoyed it! _

_Kudos to all of you Whovians who can point out my random Doctor Who reference. I kind of had a fangirl moment while I was writing this... while I was watching an episode of _Merlin_. Did I mention the fact that I'm an American? _

**A Good Man**

**Chapter 3**

Out of all of the reactions Sherlock had expected from John on the revelation he was alive, being punched in the face hadn't been one of them.

Sherlock blinked, his ears ringing and his cheek stinging as he stared at John in astonishment. The shorter man was breathing heavily, his brown eyes wide with both surprise and disbelief.

"John," Sherlock began, but came up short.

John shook his head. "It's really you, then, yeah? Not some doppelganger or Tesselector?"

Sherlock was puzzled, but John wasn't really paying attention.

"I don't believe this," he muttered. "You're—you're alive. You jumped off a building and you're still _alive_."

Sherlock waited, sensing this was just the beginning of what would, most likely, be a lot of yelling and disbelieving noises. For such a mild person, John did a lot of yelling, especially when he was upset.

"Of course you're still alive," John was saying, as he turned on his heel and started pacing. "Death is too simple for Sherlock Holmes. Too easy."

The words struck a chord—the conversation with Moriarty still all too present in Sherlock's mind.

"Don't be absurd, John."

The doctor snorted. "I don't think it's absurd," he said. "Not at all. I watched you _die_, Sherlock! I watched you jump off that bloody building and _die_. For nearly a month I've had to live with the fact that you were _dead_ and now you're not!"

"In my defense, I was never really dead," Sherlock pointed out.

John glared. "That's not the point, Sherlock!"

The detective sighed and folded his arms over his chest, flinching ever so slightly as the still mending bones in his left arm protested.

John caught the wince and immediately, his entire demeanor changed.

"Are you all right?"

"Taking a jump off Saint Bart's morgue isn't exactly beneficial to my health," Sherlock pointed out. "It had some… unforeseen consequences."

There was a brief moment of silence.

"So, go on then," John said, shifting uncomfortably. "You must be dying to tell me how you survived."

"A well placed garbage truck and Molly Hooper," Sherlock replied.

"Molly… Molly _Hooper_?" John asked, clearly shocked. "She knew you were alive?"

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. "Don't be an idiot, John, of course she did. I needed someone in the morgue to know what was going on."

"Who else?" John demanded, his temper flaring again. "Who else knew you were alive?"

"I don't see why this matters."

"Just answer the question," John all but yelled.

"Mycroft. Lestrade."

John's eyes went wide. "_Lestrade_ knew? You told _Lestrade_ that you were still alive and you didn't-?"

He trailed off, but it was easy for Sherlock to deduce what the doctor was going to say next.

"It was necessary that Lestrade knew the truth," Sherlock said simply.

John visibly swallowed. "But not me."

"You had to believe that I was a fraud, John."

"Yeah, because _that_ was going to happen," the doctor snapped.

Sherlock opened his mouth to say something, but John cut across him.

"You know, I Googled myself, after your swan dive. None of the stuff you found out about was on there. The fact that Harry is short for Harriet, is, but none of the rest of it."

In all honesty, the consulting detective _should_ have considered that fact. But he had been a little busy attempting to get John believe he was a fraud at that point.

"I needed you to believe that I was a fraud," Sherlock repeated.

"Why?" John demanded. "Why did I have to believe that, over everyone else?"

"Because Moriarty would have you killed otherwise."

The words came out of Sherlock's mouth without his consent, leaving John wide-eyed and open mouthed. Clearly, he hadn't considered that.

Sherlock shifted uncomfortably, never having been one for emotional confrontations.

John closed his mouth, only to open it again as he attempted to think of something to say.

"You… you jumped off a building because if you didn't, Moriarty would have killed me?"

"Yes."

A snort of derision wasn't exactly what Sherlock had been expecting, but then again, he never really had gotten the hang of reading the multitude of facial expressions, especially John's.

"I don't bloody believe it. You come in here, after being _dead_ for a month, and then you expect me to believe the only reason why you didn't flaunt how clever you are was because Moriarty was going to kill me?"

"Is that impossible to believe, John?"

"Yes! Because Moriarty is dead, damn it. He's been dead for as long as you have—oho. He's not dead, is he?"

Sherlock was saved from having to answer that question by the sudden arrival of Mrs. Hudson.

"John, dear, you really need to stop leaving your mail on the front step. I'm going to fall over it one of these days," she scolded as she dropped a package off on the kitchen table. She glanced around, her eyes landing on Sherlock.

A shocked exclamation escaped her lips, before she placed her hands on her hips.

"Sherlock! It's about time you showed up."

_Good old Mrs. Hudson,_ Sherlock thought with a smile.

John looked from Sherlock to their land lady and back again, shock on his face.

"The whole world's gone bloody insane," he muttered.

Mrs. Hudson smiled. "I'll go put on a pot of tea, then. You two have a lot of catching up to do."

She left quickly, leaving John and Sherlock on their own once more.

It seemed as though their land lady had had a calming effect on John, for the ex army doctor stopped his incessant pacing to crash into his chair.

Sherlock glanced around.

"Mycroft has been here, I take it."

John grimaced and looked at the remains of his shattered phone on the ground.

"Yeah. You could say that."

"John…"

"_Don't_, Sherlock. Don't do that. Just, don't be you for a minute, okay?"

Sherlock wanted to point out how utterly ridiculous that sounded, but stopped before the words came out of his mouth.

"Okay," he said instead.

If John was surprised by the rather quick acquiescence, he didn't comment on it. He stared at Sherlock, clearly bemused, and at least slightly irritated.

The sound of a phone buzzing interrupted John's silent study of Sherlock. The ex army doctor grimaced.

"You should get that."

Sherlock shrugged one shoulder.

"It can wait."

"Answer the phone, Sherlock. God forbid Lestrade goes another minute without his great consulting detective."

There was an overwhelming sarcasm in John's voice that Sherlock decided not to comment on as he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket.

It was indeed a text from Lestrade, requesting Sherlock's presence at Scotland Yard immediately. Apparently, there was a murdered woman and no suspects.

John was scowling.

"It's Lestrade, then, yes?"

Sherlock nodded. "He is in need of my assistance."

"So you're leaving again."

"Yes."

John glared. "Don't you think it's the wrong time for that?"

"Murder never waits, John. Surely, you know that."

The ex army doctor crossed his arms over his chest. Sherlock stared impassively back.

"Would you like to come along?" the consulting detective asked.

"Good God, yes."


End file.
